A Kenya human rights commissioner is trying to have intersex people, often designated by ‘I’, decoupled from an abbreviation for sexual minorities, gays, lesbians, transgender, bisexual and queer, meaning not straight.
Kenya National Commission on Human Rights commissioner Dennis Wamalwa, who is intersex, says the initiative is about securing intersex identity as the third gender, without plunging it into the controversy of LGBTQ.
The aim is for intersex children to get protection and support without being stigmatised.
KNCHR’s mandate is to promote and protect human rights in Kenya.
Intersex are people born with sex characteristics, including chromosome patterns, gonads or genitals that, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies”.
They may have both male and female genitalia.
Sex assignment at birth usually aligns with an infant’s external genitalia. Some characteristics do not develop until later in life.
Other conditions involve the development of atypical chromosomes or hormones. Some persons may be assigned and raised as a girl or boy, based on externals, but then identify with another gender later in life.
In any case, they had no say in their reproductive anatomy.
JM, 25 years, is an intersex woman raised as a man but recently transitioned, without surgery, into a woman.
She supports Wamalwa’s initiative, saying she has borne the brunt of confusion and bias by being included in the LGBTQ group. In Kenya, it usually has negative connotation. Bias can be vicious.
JM, seemingly a male at birth, was raised as a boy and even grew facial hair and became quite tall.
In adolescence, however, her breasts grew larger, but her voice never broke or cracked as adolescent boys’ voices do.
She decided to adopt a feminine identity and live as a woman.
“I did not go through any surgery to transition. Many think that I’m a trans-person but I’m not. My body has just changed in a natural biological way. I have both male and female genitalia. The shaming and stalking I have endured makes me so happy Wamalwa wants to delink the ‘I’ from LGBTQ abbreviation,” she explained.
Wamalwa has been engaging the National Assembly to explore legislation that safeguards intersex identity in Kenya and he says good progress has been made.
“It is important to secure the gains and fight for intersex people until they are secure. That is why we are making deliberate efforts to ensure acceptance of intersex people. We want them to be supported because you don’t choose to be intersex. It is beyond you,” he said.
The 2019 population census found 1,527 intersex persons. Rights campaigners have pressed for legal and formal inclusion of intersex in law and its designation as the third gender.
Wangui Macharia, an intersex person and activist, told the Star the initiative by the commissioner was commendable.
He said the independent identity of the intersex gender, away from LGBTQ, will help ensure they receive support without stigma.
“It is important to separate intersex from the LGBTQ community because their plight is peculiar and not subjective to their own whims and feelings. We should make it a law that intersex is independent and gets the necessary protection,” he said.
